Welcome to On Tour Events, This is a quick guide & talk about microphones… that’s right here we will cover what they do & how they work & share some advice on what microphone to hire for your next event.
So let's get down to business…..
Microphones…., pretty much every musician has to deal with them at some point or another. How do you know actually which one to use and how to us it? To start there is two basic types of mics that you might use, moving coil microphones which are most commonly called dynamic mics and capacitor microphones which are most commonly known as condensers. It should be noted that dynamic mics are known for being rugged, affordable and all around useful.
They don't have the crystal clear full bandwidth operation of condensers, but this is actually often a good thing. Such as when you're recording certain types of drums, guitar amps or other acoustic instruments. Condensers are good for vocals, generally somewhat fragile and usually more expensive, they are known for their ability to capture fine detail. Condensers require some current to work, this is phantom power which is commonly represented by a button or switch labeled +48v.
Did you know microphones are a type of a transducer!
A transducer is something that converts energy from one form to another in this case they are taking sound energy and turning them into electrical energy.
The different mics work in slightly different ways, they all have a diaphragm. The diaphragm is a thin piece of material, often mylar or some form of metal and often even gold plated in the case of condensers. When sound strikes the diaphragm it causes it to vibrate and this passes energy through the rest of the microphone's components. As vibrations are converted to an electrical current, which becomes the audio signal your interface uses to capture and play back the sound.
Generally speaking smaller diaphragms are more sensitive and react faster than large diaphragms. So large diaphragm mics are often better for voice and vocals since they don't pick much as much annoying lip and mouth sounds.
Directionality?
Yep that right microphones have a directionality commonly referred to as their polar pattern.
Make sure your mic is pointed in the right direction. Most small diaphragm mics are known as front address, which means that you face the directly at whatever it is that you are trying to record. Large diaphragm mics are commonly front or side address which means you have to be sure you pointing them in the right direction. One way to tell is that most cases the company's logo is on the front on the side address microphone, here at On Tour Events all of our microphones have small tiny tables showing this thus avoiding mishaps…
Your need a preamp…
Microphones create a very weak signal so you need what's called a preamp. Your audio interface likely has at least one of them, these will amplify the very low level electrical signal to a useful level and it makes it possible for your audio interface to sample the fluctuating voltages more accurately.
So there you go, choose the right mic, face it in the right direction, plug it into a preamp and then you're ready to start capturing the sounds of the world all around you. Take a look at through our website here, we offer all types of mics along with all sound packages, lighting and staging options and of course any other event production services you may require.
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